Pressure appears to be building as the stock market bull run falters. Major indices have given up gains and moved away from lofty highs. The DOW, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all closed down – each losing around 1% on Wednesday, 18th August 2021. The FTSE 100 and DAX, Nikkei andRead More →
Stocks tumble on delta variant fears Stock markets took a hit Monday 19th July 2021, as the headlines read, ‘Dow tumbles 900 points on concern of a Covid rebound‘. Is Covid entirely to blame for this fall? No, not entirely. Fickle highs? So, why now, after all – the virusRead More →
Asia stocks lower Shares were mostly lower in Asia on Friday after U.S. stocks struggled amid uncertainty over rising Covid-19 cases and new risks appearing. Nikkei index closed down at: 28000 a drop of around 276 points On Thursday, U.S. stock indexes closed mostly down from recent highs. Asia stocksRead More →
Stress test The Federal Reserve warned that in a worst case scenario, some banks reserve capital would fall close to minimum capital requirements, with lenders subjected to loan losses of up to $700 billion. The central bank directed 33 of the largest U.S. banks to suspend share buybacks and capRead More →
Gold is a clear winner from the pandemic Gold was initially sold off in February and during the early part of March. But since then gold has made substantial progress from the March lows, mostly due to central bank stimulus activity. Gold was around $1775.00 as of Wednesday 24th June.Read More →
Cases increase Coronavirus cases are reported to have surged in Brazil, U.S. and India, and increase again in Germany. Investors appear to be unfazed by this as they attempt shake off concerns and focus on the ‘expected’ economic recovery. Worldwide, governments continue to move ahead with the re-oping of theirRead More →
More stimulus The U.S. Federal Reserve announced it would start buying individual corporate bonds. The Fed said, ‘it will purchase corporate bonds to create a corporate bond portfolio’. The Federal Reserve is stepping things up again after recent comments left investors more than a little concerned about the pace ofRead More →
Shocking but no surprise! The UK economy shrank by a record 20.4% in April 2020 due to the damaging affects of lockdown. The monthly decline was outlined in figures reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The GDP fall is three times greater than the decline seen during theRead More →
Doom and gloom? The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (OECD), has warned that the effects of the pandemic will be far reaching and will likely hit the UK harder than other comparable major economies. As the OECD reports of a very slow and difficult recovery for the UK, weRead More →
So, stocks are up and that means all is okay – no I don’t think so. These big stock market bets on economies re-opening quickly and going back to ‘normal’ are likely lulling us in to a false sense of security. We want it to be good again, of courseRead More →